


Ball And Chain

by Topographical_Map_Of_Utah



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: BB-8 Is So Done With This, F/F, Finnpoe - Freeform, First Kiss, Fluff and Crack, Force-Sensitive Finn, Handcuffed Together, Jess Be Kinky, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not in a kinky way, Rey's a Matchmaker, Stormpilot, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 05:16:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7999954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Topographical_Map_Of_Utah/pseuds/Topographical_Map_Of_Utah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know what sounds fun? Being handcuffed to your best friend for twenty-four hours. Just kidding, that sounds like hell and it's about to happen to Finn and Poe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ball And Chain

 "I can't believe this." Finn groaned, staring down at his right hand and twisting it unhappily in the cuff. Poe gave him a sheepish grin, ignoring the snickers from the few other bleary-eyed pilots and pathfinders clustered around the ping pong table set up in the corner of the hangar.

 "Just pretend that I'm your birthday present." Poe said, trying to be helpful.

 "I want the gift receipt. Do birthdays usually turn out like this?" Finn asked, turning to Rey, who just shrugged and laughed. Neither of them knew their actual birthday, so one day Poe had plopped a calendar on the table and told them to roll the dice. They had both landed on the fourth day of month five, and from then on the birthday question was completely settled. 

Finn's unit and Poe's squadron had gotten together and thrown their first proper birthday party the night before, but all the stragglers, birthday kids included, had gotten trapped in the hangar when some genius locked it from the outside. Being too tired or drunk to work out a solution everyone had just settled on sleeping over. So the lot of them had crashed on whatever vaguely horizontal surface they could find and called it a night. Yeah, discipline was kinda lax in the Resistance.  

 "It's not that bad." Poe insisted, mouth full of cake frosting. Finn gave the chain a yank and nearly pulled Poe off of his chair. "Never mind. Wow that's tight..." 

 "That so? And whose fault is that?" Finn rolled his eyes and started to mimic Poe from earlier, when he'd challenged Rey to an ill-fated game of beer pong. "Yeah, Finn, buddy, don't worry about it. I can totally beat Rey, who's a Jedi, at beer pong because I'm fucking awesome and the best pilot in the Resistance and-"  

"Looking forward to twenty-four hours with this guy?" Jess interjected with a giggle. Finn rolled his eyes and took another bite of Poe's cake, ignoring his protests.

"My question is how did I get dragged into all this?" Finn complained. "I sit down for one second and all of a sudden there's a pilot attached to my arm."

"It's simple. If Rey won, then I got chained to you. If I won, then she got chained to you." Poe explained, trying to pry the paper plate out of Finn's hand.

"I won." Rey said helpfully. She was sitting on the boarding ladder of Black One, smirking at Finn as she took swigs of Jess' beer. "What d'you we say we go another round, Dameron? If you lose you're getting chained to Snap, too." Snap snorted and Finn glared at Poe, still holding the cake out at arms reach so Poe couldn't get to it.

"That doesn't explain why I had to get involved. And why do you have these?" he asked Rey, jangling the cuffs.

"Don't ask questions you're not prepared to know the answer to." she warned with a meaningful glance at Jess, who cleared her throat and glanced at her watch.

"Right, so it's five in the morning and we're starting the clock now." Jess set the timer and looked at the two prisoners with a grin. "Okay kids, here are the rules. You stay cuffed for one standard day. The only reason you uncuff is if either one of you gets called off for a mission or a briefing with sensitive information. Other than that, it doesn't matter if you're taking a shower, sleeping, jerking off, whatever it is you get up to, you're gonna have to do it with one hand."

"Feel free to help each other out with that last one." Rey said, waggling her eyebrows. "Hope you didn't have any plans for the day."

"I was gonna go on a run." Finn grumbled.

"You can carry Poe on your back." Karé suggested helpfully.

"Can we just curl up on my bunk and not do anything?" Poe proposed.

"That's a good idea. Let's do that." Finn said quickly. This was the first time the two of them had agreed on something in the past ten minutes. But Jess killed that idea pretty quickly.

"Nope. You have to do whatever it is you were gonna do today like nothing's changed. Just pretend the other guy's not there." 

"And how much longer do I have to do that?" Finn asked.

"Only fifty minutes and twenty three hours to go." Poe answered, voice inexplicably chipper. He smiled apologetically at Finn, brightening a bit when Finn answered with a begrudging grin. "Okay, I guess this is my fault, so we're gonna stick to your schedule. How's that? And when all of this is over I'll take you someplace nice, see if I can't make it up to you."

"Deal. My schedule, right? Then I have to work out in an hour." 

"You go to the gym at six in the morning?" Poe asked incredulously. 

"Yeah. What do you do at six in the morning?"

"Eat breakfast. Like a normal person." Finn rolled his eyes and pulled Poe to his feet. "Wait, if you go to the gym then there isn't gonna be any good stuff left by the time we get to mess."

"So? It's all food."

"But I want waffles."

"You can go one day without waffles, Poe..."

While the two of them squabbled like an old married couple Jess pulled Rey aside, wrapping her arms around her neck and kissing her freckled cheek. "Why did you drag Finn into all this, sweetheart? The poor guy was just minding his own business, then you went and whipped those cuffs out. Where'd you find those, by the way?" Jess asked, feigning innocence.

"Don't pretend you don't recognise them. You should be glad I didn't pick the pink and fuzzy ones. By the way, why haven't I been introduced to that box under your bed?" Jess blushed and Rey smirked. "Well, they've been lusting after one another for the past couple years, so I just wanted to help speed up the process. I figure that by tomorrow they'll either be dead or a couple, and I'm really rooting for the latter."

"I just thought you wanted to see someone in cuffs."

"Those your plans for tonight?" Rey asked, pushing a hand up Jess' shirt and massaging her chest. She pinched a nipple and Jess strangled a squeal against Rey's lips, suddenly finding it very difficult to concentrate on anything else. Well, there was no use worrying about that bet, anyways. The guys could take care of themselves. Besides, as of right now she had more important things to attend to.

 

\------------

 

"Seems kinda strange that I'm the one working out and you got hurt..." Finn grunted between sit-ups. Poe was sitting on the bench beside him, an icepack pressed to his shoulder and the last piece of birthday cake on his knee. Finn had let him have it as an apology for nearly breaking his arm.

Finn wasn't sure whether or not he should be proud, but he and Poe were kinda great at being handcuffed together. The only problem so far was that while Finn was pounding away at a punching bag he'd wrenched Poe's shoulder. Going to medbay for some ice had been a fun experience. Once Finn finished the set he rolled to his feet, rubbing out a kink in his shoulder. "How much longer have we got?"

"Twenty hours." Poe told him. Finn nodded, stretching his arms above his head. Poe looked away and swallowed, keeping his eyes glued to his feet. "It's your day off, right?"

"Yup. Dunno what we'd do if it wasn't. Can we have breakfast now?" 

"Good idea. I say we skip the shower for now." Poe added, glancing warily at the locker room door.

"I say you're right." Finn agreed, grinning when Poe tossed a towel at his face and dragged him out the door.

After a pretty awkward wait in line for food the two of them settled down at their usual spot in the mess hall, Rey smirking at Finn's elbow and Poe's squadron slumped across the table nursing hangovers. Even with the cuffs on they got by without mishaps, aside from when Poe kept getting up to say hi to people without warning Finn. A couple pieces of toast were lost along the way. It wasn't that bad, though. Call him crazy, but Finn liked being this close to Poe, even with the knocking elbows and awkward maneuvers. 

After breakfast Finn was leaning against the doorway, waiting for Poe to wrap up a conversation. It was a miracle this guy ever got anything done, considering how much he chattered. Finn was starting to get impatient, then something beeped at his knee and a domed head nudged his thigh. He looked down and grinned at the familiar droid, who was sporting a brand new orange plate on the side of his head. 

"BB-8? I thought you were in maintenance." The little guy had needed a patch job after a rough landing had left him with a dent in his skull. Nothing major, but it was a week later and Poe was still guilty about that. BB-8 seemed to know it, hiding behind Finn's leg like he wanted Finn to help him surprise Poe, who was finally done talking. "Alright. Hey, Poe." Finn tugged at the chain and Poe turned around, a smile breaking across his face when BB-8 rolled up to him with a happy chirp. "Look who it is."

"BB-8, buddy! Man, am I glad to see you. You feel better? How's your head?" Poe crouched down and BB-8 nudged against his hand, but when he saw the cuffs the droid recoiled, looking between them with something like horror on his face. Then he beeped something and Poe blushed. "What? No! Who taught you..." BB-8 made a whirring noise, rolling back and forth excitedly. "Should've known. And no, this isn't anything like that. We lost a bet, alright?"

"What'd he say?" Finn asked.

"Nothing. It was nothing..." Poe shook his head and rushed off, dragging Finn along with BB-8 trundling after them, beeping cheerfully. If only Finn understood binary. He should really get on that.

 

\------------

 

After trying and failing to do repairs on Poe's x-wing the two of them left the job to BB-8 and spent the afternoon in Poe's office, doing paperwork and trying not to giggle when somebody came in to drop something off. The good news was that they each had their dominant hand free, so they didn't get in each other's way that often. They could also hide their cuffed hands under the table. That proved to be advantageous when officers walked in. They learnt that only Poe should salute whenever that happened, since the first time Finn had brought his right hand up on reflex, and there was an awkward moment where Admiral Ackbar was left blinking at the cuffs strapping together two of the Resistance's best commanders. Not a highlight of the day, that.

But more importantly, over the past several hours Poe had learnt a couple things. Firstly, his palms got inexplicably sweaty whenever Finn's knee nudged his or their shoulders brushed. Secondly, Finn liked using Poe's shoulder as a headrest and Poe was pretty sure Finn could feel it when his face heated up. It went without saying that Poe hadn't gotten much work done.

"How much longer have we got?" Finn yawned after awhile. Poe stopped trying to blink a report back into focus and glanced at the clock, sighing in relief when he realised the day was finally over.

"Twelve hours. I say we sleep through it."

"Good plan." Finn made to get up but Poe slumped into his chair a little bit, sorta like a stubborn kid. "What's up?"

 "What'll the General think if she sees us cuffed together?" Poe mumbled, blushing a little bit. Apparently he'd never recovered from what from now on would be known as the Ackbar Incident. Sighing, Finn grabbed Poe by the hand and hoisted him to his feet. After a moment spent considering he twined their fingers together and stood a little bit closer, giving Poe a teasing grin.

"There. Problem solved."

"Is it, though?" Poe asked as Finn pulled him out the door. "This is gonna raise even more questions..."

Turns out he was wrong. He found that out when they passed by a throng of technicians chatting on the stairs and not one of them batted an eye. One guy even said hi to Poe, not surprised at all. Apparently he and Finn usually walked this close, even without the cuffs. Now that he thought about it Poe usually had an arm around Finn's shoulder or was being dragged along by the hand. This was basically just a variation of the same theme. 

When they got outside Finn gave Poe's hand a squeeze, swinging his arm back and forth and whistling as they made their way across the base. No one they passed payed any mind to them, which was a bit strange, now that Poe thought about it. Wait, did the whole base just think that he and Finn were a couple? He was able to convince himself that that was crazy talk, but then Finn was able to hold a five minute conversation with a couple of his squad mates without letting go of Poe's hand. Yeah, that sure was platonic. 

Still in denial, Poe clocked all this paranoia up to exhaustion and figured that once he got a good night's sleep he'd wake up _not_ thinking about how much he liked holding hands with his best friend. Stepping into his quarters was a relief, but of course Finn didn't let it last long.

"I have to take a shower." he decided as soon as they walked in. Thank the stars commanders got to have ensuites. Poe imagined awkwardly standing outside one of the stalls in the changing room and shuddered. Wow. So this could be worse after all.

"Good to know. Have fun." Poe started towards the bed at the same time as Finn stepped towards the fresher. The two of them wound up getting jerked back and cracking the backs of their skulls together. Oh, right. This could prove to be a bit more complicated than Poe had anticipated.

"Fuck." Finn grunted. 

"Ow..." Poe rubbed his head and looked petulantly at Finn. "D'you really have to shower?"

"I was working out in the morning, remember? I smell like a locker room."

"Oh, right..." Poe did remember, quite vividly. But Finn's abs were not an image he needed right now. "How's that gonna work?"

"It's not. That's the problem." But Finn wasn't about to let that stop him. He started to wriggle out of his shirt and paused, still halfway in. "How do I get this off?"

"Geez, okay, let's think about this..." Now Poe had been forced into some awkward team building exercises over the years, but this took the cake. Whenever Poe tried to help he wound up elbowing Finn in the face, and when Finn raised his arms Poe got dragged along as well. For more than a few minutes they were chest to chest, Poe zoning out every other second when Finn accidentally rutted against him or let out a frustrated huff. This wasn't the most efficient way of doing things. 

When they finally figured it out they just hung the shirt on the chain and Poe had to stand awkwardly close to the stall while Finn showered, trying to distract himself with a holovid. Unfortunately Finn kept peeking around the curtain to watch with him.

"Hey, put some headphones on, would you? I haven't seen that episode yet. You're gonna spoil it." Finn complained.

"I left them on my desk." 

"Whatever. I'm done, anyways. D'you have a towel?"

"Um..." Poe looked around the fresher and cussed, realising he'd left a stack of neatly folded towels on the bed beside the laundry hamper. They didn't do them much good from all the way over here, though. "Can you, I guess..." Poe looked at Finn with a wheedling smile on his face. "Force-float one over, or something?" 

"Really?" Finn scowled, but a second later he relented and a towel smacked Poe in the face. He pulled it off and passed it to Finn, who he could hear laughing behind the curtain.

"Impressive. Hey, while you're at it, can you Force-unlock these?" Poe asked, jangling the cuffs.

"That's not how the Force works..." Finn complained, stepping out of the shower with the towel around his waist and water glistening on his chest. It was only a coincidence that Poe's eyes widened and he nearly tripped backwards. Yeah, that had nothing to do with Finn at all.

The good news was that Finn was clean, but his shirt had gotten a little bit waterlogged in the process. It was decided that getting him another shirt would be more effort than it was worth, so he wound up in nothing but a borrowed pair of sweatpants. Simply put, constantly being within a foot of all that action was not good for Poe's concentration. Add that to the white Resistance starbird that Finn had gotten tattooed over the scar on his shoulder and Poe was basically rendered incapable of most higher brain functions. Or lower, for that matter.

At least there were only eleven hours to go, Poe reasoned as they settled down together on his bunk with their favourite holo-serial and a bowl of chips. Not that different from what they usually did on their days off, actually. This bet was a lot easier than Poe had anticipated. Hell, he was kind of enjoying himself. 

Then a couple episodes in Finn started to squirm. "My arm's numb." he complained. After a couple adjustments they figured out that the only comfortable position was when Poe had his chained arm wrapped around Finn's shoulder and Finn was curled against his chest. Well, that was unfortunate. Finn sighed into Poe's shirt and shook his head. "How d'you keep getting us into situations like this?"

"Name one time-"

"Mon Cala. Abafar. Calcoraan. Jakku." Finn raised an eyebrow and gave Poe a look he knew well. "You want more? I got more."

"Jakku? What'd I do on Jakku?" 

"You made me think that you were dead. Not cool, man..." Finn complained.

"Oh, right. That was not a good day." Poe reflected. "I'm glad you didn't die, by the way. Not specifically on Jakku. Just, y'know, in general."

"There've been some close shaves."

"You're telling me? How's your back?"

"How's your head?" Finn countered, flicking some hair away from the scar on Poe's forehead. "Last time I saw you in cuffs was not nearly this fun." 

"Think about that a lot, do you?"

"That's gross." Finn complained. He went quiet for a bit, then he nudged Poe's elbow and looked at him curiously. "Why did you trust me, by the way? On the Finalizer. I could've totally been fucking with you."

"Well..." Poe shrugged and rested back against the wall, grinning when Finn rested comfortably against his shoulder. "Part of it was shock value, I guess. I'd never seen a stormtrooper without their helmet on. To be honest, I half expected there to be nothing there." Poe laughed. "I dunno. You just seemed scared, like you'd just taken the biggest risk of your life. I could relate. Don't think I've ever properly thanked you for that, though. Would've died there without you."

"Don't mention it. I was just glad to get off out of that mess..."

"It was a bit of an out of the frying pan and into the fire scenario, though. But you're happy here, right?" 

"'Course I am. Are you?"

"Yeah. But, y'know..."

"What comes next?" Finn provided. Poe nodded and smiled at Finn. This guy could read him like a book.

"Yeah, I guess so. I mean my parents, they had this whole thing about why they were with the Rebellion. They wanted the galaxy to not be tearing itself to shreds, for once. We know how that turned out." Poe laughed and shook his head, grinning the way he did when he thought of home. "But once this is over I'm gonna go back to Yavin IV and take a break. Build a house, fix some fighters, put together a tree fort, it's gonna be great."

"Wouldn't that be lonely? A big old house all to yourself out in the woods. Makes me wonder what you'd get up to." Finn pointed out.

"I'd have BB-8. Couldn't get rid of that droid if I tried." Poe laughed. Finn poked him and they swapped jobs, Finn placing his arm as casually as possible around Poe's shoulders. "And hopefully I'm gonna have somebody else there, too. Somebody who doesn't taze me when I don't pay attention to 'em." 

"That sounds nice." Finn agreed. Poe nodded and rested his head on Finn's neck with a sigh. This wasn't that bad, actually. Probably the first bet he didn't regret losing.

"How about you? What do you want?" Poe asked, curious. The future wasn't something they talked about often, mostly because they didn't know whether or not it would happen. Now that Poe thought about it, he had no clue what Finn's plans were for afterwards. He didn't have a home to go back to, did he?

"Well..." Finn hesitated, chewing on his lip while he tried to figure out what to say. "I want to get outta this alive. Beyond that I don't really know. This was never part of my plan when I was growing up, y'know?" he waved his free hand vaguely around the room, maybe indicating the Resistance, Poe, maybe just life in general. "Didn't have time to think of a future outside of being promoted, hopefully not dying in a shoot-out."

"Promoted?" Poe asked. No, wait, that made sense. After a year of working with him Poe had figured out that Finn wasn't just any soldier. He was a tactician, a leader. If a mission went bad there was no doubt in Poe's mind that Finn would figure out a way to dig himself and his squadron out. For a minute Poe pictured Finn in the chromium armour of the captain he'd seen on Jakku, a black command cape around his shoulders, masked and commanding and deadly. Yeah, he would've been one of the First Order's best, right up there with that bastard Hux. 

"Your idea sounds nice, though. Settling down someplace. Can't really picture you "settling" though. Don't think there's anybody out there who could convince you to do that..." Finn laughed, resting his cheek on the top of Poe's head. Poe blinked out of his thoughts and smiled. For a second he'd forgotten this part of Finn, this tactile, endearing part that didn't quite match up with the rest of him. Poe liked that part best.

"That's why it's called a _special_ someone."Poe reminded him. Yeah, it sounded cheesy, but that's what he wanted. After the war, when the pilots get to go home and the generals take over, Poe wanted to move back to Yavin IV with someone special. Somebody to curl up with on cold nights and talk to about whatever comes to mind. Somebody who wouldn't think it was stupid that Poe wanted to build a tree fort in the back yard. Somebody to start a family with, one day. Finn shifted closer and Poe sighed into his collar, head still in the daydream. "Someone like you, I guess." 

"What?" Shit. Poe hadn't realised he'd said that last part aloud. He coughed and sat up, edging as far away from Finn as he could. How the hell could he salvage this? 

"Someone like you, but not, not _you_ you. I just meant someone who I could talk to the way I talk to you. I can talk about anything with you, but I'm not saying what you think I'm saying. Not that I don't like you. I really like you, don't think I don't. But it's in like a platonic way. Pretty platonic, anyways. And..."

Finn just kept staring at him, eyebrows raised and mouth set in an unreadable expression. But it was readable enough for Poe to tell that Finn didn't buy his bullshit. Wow. He really was a terrible liar.

"Never mind." Poe tried to roll away, then the cuffs clinked against his wrist and he cussed under his breath. Well this was just perfect. Not knowing what else to do he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and shook his head as heat crept into his cheeks. "Just..."

"Wait, so do you like me or not?" Finn prodded. Okay, this was just getting ridiculous.

"I'm a grown ass man for fuck's sake and your acting like a kid in grade school-" Poe had more to say, but then he felt a soft pressure against his neck and stiffened, choking on his words. Finn noticed but he just kept on nosing and kissing Poe's neck, lips gentle on his skin. Poe closed his eyes and let him, leaning back and resting his head on Finn's shoulder with a shaky breath, sighing when Finn's lips found their way to his mouth. Well, that was a relief.

"Huh." Poe said softly when they took a break to breath. Finn started to pull away but Poe shook his head and drew him closer, almost straddling him. "No, wait. Didn't mean it like that."

"Then what did you mean?" They were eye to eye and Poe's free hand was resting on Finn's tattoo, the other curled against his chest only a little bit awkwardly. His eyes were bright and he was holding back a smirk, tilting his head to the side and running his hand through Poe's curls. "I just got a lot of stuttering and denial."

"Shut up..." Poe mumbled, pulling Finn into another kiss. His lips were soft and warm and they could probably do this forever without ever getting bored, Poe decided as he gently pushed Finn down onto his back and hopped on top of him, all without pulling away from the kiss. Never mind, they could _definitely_ do this forever and never get bored.

When they finally did separate Poe propped his chin up on Finn's chest and smiled at him, closing his eyes when Finn playfully ruffled his curls. "Hey, Poe, I think I know where I want you to take me when all this is over."

"Yavin IV?" Poe guessed.

"You read my mind." Finn laughed as he kissed the gap between Poe's front teeth.

"Sounds good to me." Poe snuggled closer to Finn, blinking down at the cuff on his wrist. "Y'know, I feel like Rey had an ulterior motive when she made us do this." Poe realised. Finn laughed and kissed him again, taking Poe's shackled hand in both of his.

"No shit. I'm glad your aim's so bad." Finn teased. Poe rolled his eyes and flopped off of Finn, gathering him up in his arms.

"It's not my fault! She kept using the Force. That's an unfair advantage. You Force-users are a bunch of cheaters..."

"Get used to that, flyboy." Finn closed his eyes and buried his face in Poe's neck, a broad smile on his face. "Because you're gonna be dealing with this Force-using cheater for a long time."

"That a fact?" Finn nodded and Poe grinned, watching Finn nestle deeper into his arms. He looked like he belonged there, and all of a sudden that big old house in the middle of the woods didn't seem quite so lonely anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse.


End file.
